I hear a lot of debate about vaccines these days, and I think it’s an interesting topic because of what it reveals about our current zeitgeist. I’ve hesitated to say anything about the subject, because the decision of whether or not to vaccinate children is generally made by parents, and it’s hard for me to think of anyone crazy enough to bring a child into this world as capable of making intelligent decisions. However, I can see why an intelligent parent, if in fact they exist, might reasonably, or even wisely, choose not to have their child immunized as thoroughly as the State of California now demands for all public school students.

I understand the value of vaccines. My dad had polio. He had a withered left leg and walked with a severe limp from the time he was five years old. I wouldn’t wish that on anyone. Today, they’ve nearly wiped polio out with the Salk and Sabin Vaccines, but still, cases do turn up, especially in densely populated areas with poor sanitation. Polio remains a threat, in part because many people who live in areas still affected by polio, resist immunization themselves, and refuse to immunize their children. I understand how wonderful it would be to live in a world where no one ever got polio again, but I also understand why even the people most effected by polio would vehemently resist taking the vaccine.

Polio is a terrible disease, but polio is not an evil disease. My dad got polio because he grew up in Philadelphia, trapped in a maze of concrete, teeming with malnourished, alcoholic humans, choked with soot, sewage and industrial waste. My dad got sick because of the wretched conditions he endured as a child. Instead of making life better for children, the Salk Vaccine made it possible for more children to endure and survive such horrid conditions. That’s what vaccines do. Vaccines allow people to survive in unhealthy conditions, and as conditions deteriorate, we require more and more vaccines to endure them.

We use vaccines to override nature’s population control functions. Meanwhile, overpopulation remains the biggest threat to life on Earth and the leading cause of poverty and human suffering. While vaccines save lives, they don’t make life better, and they don’t lead to a brighter future. Also, the risk, benefit analysis of all vaccines is not the same. Your veterinarian will tell you that before your doctor will, but it’s true. I caught mumps, measles and chicken pox in public school, along with all of my class mates, and we all survived. Not every vaccine fights a disease as terrible as polio or small pox, and not every vaccine is as effective as the Salk vaccine, but every vaccine has it’s own distinct list of side-effects and interactions.

I don’t want to debate the science of vaccines, because the people who believe in Science, are eager to bludgeon people with it. In truth, I think the difference between the pro-vaccination and anti-vaccination camps has more to do with perspective and values than it does with facts and science. I think it’s an issue upon which reasonable people can disagree, and where we disagree, says a lot about where we are, as a culture.

As science has ascended to the status of religion in our culture, it is not enough for science to describe our world to us. Science needs to inspire us with the promise of a brighter future, and save us from impending doom. Science needed a mythology, and vaccines have become a critical part of the mythology behind Science, the religion. Here’s how the story goes:

Through vaccines, Science has saved millions of lives. Small pox, rabies, polio, tuberculosis, these diseases plagued mankind before the advent of Science, but once scientists developed vaccines for these diseases, people stopped dying from them. Fewer people dying means more lives saved. The mathematical calculation of how many lives vaccines have saved is a critical component to the mythology of this new religion.

This calculation must be unassailable in it’s methodology, and honest about it’s margin of error, and it must show that vaccines have saved millions of lives, and the number of lives saved by vaccines must continue to rise. Science needs to save a lot of lives with vaccines, because from time to time, science kills and maims a lot of people. From thalidomide babies, surgical accidents and the known side-effects of prescribed medications, to DDT, Love Canal, and Fukushima, science has killed and maimed a whole lot of people. For Science to serve as our religion, the number of lives destroyed by science must seem insignificant compared to the number of lives it has saved, and giving someone a vaccine is about the cheapest and easiest way to “save” someone that Science can get.

From another, equally scientific, perspective, one may ask: In a world where a hundred or more species of plant and animal go extinct every day, why should we care so much about saving human lives? Why should we support and participate in these efforts to override nature’s population control systems when it inevitably leads to a lower quality of life, and more environmental destruction? Maybe the better world you envision for your child is not one which hosts the largest possible human population. You may, quite reasonably, feel that what’s best for your child’s future is not what the Church of Science demands of you.

It’s not that people don’t believe the statistics, or understand the concept. I think they do understand. They understand that technological fixes, like vaccines, usually cover up, and spawn bigger problems than they solve. People have seen enough to know that science doesn’t make life better. People have seen enough of science to recognize the pattern that starts with a great discovery, followed by promises of a brighter future, succeeded by “God help us. What have we done?” I think we have entered an age where people regret science.

The anti-vaccination movement tells me that death and disease no longer frighten us as much as the horrors unleashed by science, and that people no longer believe that Science will bring them a better tomorrow. People have learned to mistrust Science, not because of superstition, or lack of understanding, but because of experience. We’ve seen enough of Science to recognize it for what it is, and now that we understand science, we realize that we’d better trust nature.

NPR recently reported on a scientific paper that predicted 1% of girls who live in the area effected by the Fukushima nuclear disaster, and were one year old at the time of the meltdown, would get cancer from the radiation exposure resulting from the incident. The report concluded that cancers resulting from the Fukushima nuclear disaster would not raise Japan’s cancer rate very much at all, since about half, or 50% of all Japanese people get cancer at some point in their lives already.

My brain almost exploded when I heard that report. First, I can scarcely imagine what kind of statistical gymnastics it took for them to jump to that conclusion, especially considering that the disaster continues unabated. I mean, the reactors continue to melt, producing heat, steam and huge quantities of deadly radioactive material, that is by no means contained. This material continues to contaminate soil and groundwater in the area, and few believe that anyone can prevent the heavily contaminated groundwater from flowing into the Pacific Ocean. Clearly, the best is yet to come.

Second: Half of all Japanese people can expect to get cancer in their lifetime! That shocked me. Cancer was relatively rare before the Industrial Revolution, which is why they call cancer a “disease of civilization”. Doctors identified the first causes of cancers in the 18th Century, which appeared as rare tumors on the scrota of chimney-sweeps with poor hygiene. 300 years of carcinogenic industrial pollutants later, so many people get cancer that even an ongoing nuclear catastrophe will hardly make a dent in the national cancer rate.

Isn’t that reassuring. Really, why worry about Fukushima? Your dryer sheets will kill you before it does. Your nail polish, oven cleaner, deodorant, air freshener, the smell of your new car, carpet, paint, and furniture will help. Vehicle emissions, industrial incinerators, coal fired power plants, chemical plants and plastics factories provide free carcinogens for people who can’t afford to buy products that contain them. The body burden of pesticides, flame retardants, rocket propellants and a couple hundred other chemicals we inherited from our parents, gave them all a head start. How could one nuclear disaster hope to compete with a full-court press like that.

Finally, even assuming this dubious estimate turns out to be accurate, what kind of metric is the estimated number of additional cancers in one year old girls from Fukushima, for measuring the magnitude of the Fukushima disaster? What about two year old girls? What about five year old girls? What about boys? What about adults? What about kids who haven’t been born yet?

How many of those one year old girls will suffer miscarriages, or have children with birth defects because of radiation from Fukushima? What about 15 year old girls, or 25 year old women? How many miscarriages and birth defects have already resulted from the Fukushima nuclear disaster. How many of those babies will develop cancer later in life?

How does 1% sound for a wild ass guess for any and all of the above questions. I’ll bet that’s as accurate of a guess as the study I heard quoted. Does that sound like an acceptable cost? 1% sounds like almost nothing, doesn’t it? That’s probably why they chose that number for their prediction. One bullet, one hundred people, Russian Roulette anyone? This still doesn’t get to the heart of the issue, because Fukushima is the gift that keeps on giving.

What happens the next time an earthquake triggers a tsunami in the area, and it stirs up all of the radioactive mud just off the coast of the plant, that will probably never be cleaned up, and dumps it all over the countryside? It’s bound to happen, in 50, 100, or 500 yrs or so, and all of that plutonium will be just as fresh and deadly as it is today. What happens in 10,000 yrs when no one there speaks Japanese anymore, or has any idea why this lovely oceanfront real-estate has remained undeveloped? What happens in 10,000,000 yrs, when bipedal felines plant the whole area in catnip? I’ll hazard a guess that 1% of bipedal felines exposed to contaminated catnip develop feline leukemia, using the same math as the researchers quoted on NPR.

…And for what? A few fleeting megawatts of electricity, mostly wasted on garish signage, excessive lighting, electronic toilets and Japanese game shows. Unlike the electricity generated at the Fukushima nuclear power station, the Fukushima nuclear disaster will not go away. The deadly impacts of Fukushima will even outlast the fortunes of Tepco’s shareholders, who profited from the massive public investment in, inherently dangerous, uncompetitively expensive, nuclear power.

The lasting radioactive legacy of the Fukushima nuclear disaster will remain a threat, and an impediment to life on Earth until the sun goes super-nova and burns the Earth to a cinder. Radioactivity from Fukushima, and the contaminated area around it, like Chernobyl, not to mention every other nuclear power plant, laboratory, or weapons facility ever built, will continue to take lives, cause sickness and make life harder on Planet Earth until the end of time.

Life on Planet Earth is hard enough, thank you very much, and we really don’t need the additional burden.

The Professor suggested that I write something about the recent revelations from Tepco about the Fukushima Nuclear Disaster. What humor could I possibly find in the worst industrial catastrophe in the history of mankind? How about:

What’s the difference between Tepco and Bradley Manning?

Bradley Manning saved innocent civilians by leaking secret information to the press, while Tepco killed innocent civilians by keeping information about the leak secret from the press.

Or how about…

What do Tepco and Jorma Kaukonen have in common?

They both produced Hot Tuna.

How many Tepco employees does it take to change a light bulb?

Two, a janitor to hold the bulb up to the socket, and the CEO to screw the whole world around it.

There’s a start, I guess.

When faced with an overwhelming situation like Fukushima, it can help to look on the bright side. For instance…

A glowing ocean means people can now surf at night.

Now you can use your Geiger counter to locate nearby sushi restaurants.

Fish enthusiasts will find new mutant species for their marine aquariums

Pacific seafood now comes out of the water pre-cooked

See, even though the Fukushima nuclear meltdown has become an unmitigated disaster of epic proportions, it’s not all bad news. In fact, the Fuk Nuke Puke will create tremendous economic opportunities for people who know how to take advantage of them. For example, there’s never been a better time to become a pediatric oncologist. The pay is great, and you’ll be up to your eyeballs in bald six-year-olds in no time.

You know what they say, “When GE sells you a lemon of a nuclear reactor, make the ocean into radioactive lemonade.”

I haven’t spoken about this here yet, because its not funny, but the Fukushima nuclear facility continues to spew radiation into the environment in huge quantities, and will keep spewing highly radioactive material into the air and water for some time to come. People will die as a result.

Perhaps millions, but certainly hundreds of thousands of people will die, mostly after long, expensive battles with cancer. Tens of thousands more will be born with Down’s Syndrome, or other crippling birth defects that will prevent them from living anything like normal lives. Some of these people will be U.S. citizens. Some may live in Humboldt Co.

None of these people will be compensated in any way for their suffering. They will pay with their lives, the true price for nuclear electricity, as will millions more in the future. The Fukushima disaster is a catastrophe unparalleled in the history of humanity, now surpassing Chernobyl. But we have dozens of Fukushimas in the making, right here in the U.S.

The NRC, our national regulatory board, which acts more like cheerleaders than watchdogs of the nuclear industry, recently re-licensed the aging, leaking, Fukushima style reactor in Vernon, Vermont, over the objection of the Vermont State legislature and the Governor. The Federal government, through the NRC, has given the private for-profit corporation, Entergy, permission to operate this plant far beyond its designed lifespan, despite its numerous design flaws, inadequate containment structure, vulnerable spent fuel pool, and numerous unexplained and continuing leaks of radioactive waste into the surrounding environment. “To hell with the people of Vermont” say the NRC, “Run it into the ground”.

They say the same thing to us, “To hell with the people of California”, when we tell them that San Onofre and Diablo Canyon nuclear power plants must be shut down. “Run them into the ground” they say. They know, they’ll never have to compensate anyone for the disease they cause. They know that the people they harm will just slowly sink around them, suffering quietly until they die, racking up crushing medical expenses, for completely preventable conditions, that often prove fatal.

It’s time to say “To hell with the NRC” We cannot trust them. They have failed us. Its time to demand an immediate shutdown of all nuclear power plants in the U.S. Nuclear power has never been competitive in the market, it has never been clean, and it will never be safe. Its time to dismantle and decommission these relics of the cold war before we face a Fukushima scale disaster here in the U.S.

This Friday and Saturday, Sept 30 and Oct 1, will mark a day of rallies across the U.S. to demand an end to the deadly legacy of nuclear power. Here in Humboldt, rally in:

Garberville, at the Garberville town square on Friday Sept.30 at 11:00am

Eureka, at the Humboldt County Courthouse on Saturday Oct 1 at 11:00am

We sure do work hard don’t we? American worker productivity has risen 106% in the last 20yrs. At the same time, real wages have fallen by 6%. Clearly we don’t mind working harder even when we ‘re not getting paid for it. The average American, even after the economic melt-down, still works more than 50 hours a week, or about half of all waking hours. Far more than the average medieval peasant. Don’t we have anything better to do?

I know they call us the working-class, because we work, but why do we work? More importantly, why do we work for them? By them I mean “the job creators”, the multimillionaires who have engineered our society. Specifically, why do we hope to work for them so much that we excuse them from paying their fair share of taxes, in the hopes that they might create a few jobs? We talk about these jobs like they were angels from heaven, but if you’ve ever worked at one, you know that most jobs suck.

We treat work as a moral obligation. We call it “the work ethic”. It doesn’t matter if the work has any meaning to you, does any good in the world, if it’s work, by golly you should do it, whether you get paid or not. Why should we feel this way about work?

Many people feel a strong moral obligation to their family, but they don’t despise people who don’t have a family. Some people feel a strong moral obligation to to their church, but they don’t hate me for sleeping-in on Sunday. They just want to share “the good news.” Work is different. People with jobs resent those without.

That’s always the first insult hurled at the poor…They’re lazy. They don’t want to work. If they had a “work ethic”, they’d go get low paying jobs, doing hard labor, under dangerous conditions. We resent the poor for not working, even though most of them do work, because we all resent working so much, ourselves.

So, lets face that fact. Work sucks! We need good reasons to motivate us to work. We need to get paid. In the last 30 years, the calculus of work has shifted a lot. Wages have declined substantially. Fewer jobs offer health benefits, and fewer still offer long term security. After a decade of hyper-inflated home prices, fewer workers see home ownership as a realistic aspiration. As the method-actor might say, “What’s our motivation?”

Do we treat the people who really work hard, for low wages, like fruit pickers, farm workers or food service people, with reverence? Do they gain social standing for their obvious strong moral character? Hardly. We do everything we can to make them invisible. We don’t want to see poor hard working people any more than we want to see poor unemployed people. So, if you can’t afford a decent place to live and a healthy diet on your salary, and society is going to treat you like the scum of the earth anyway, why work at all?

When your job doesn’t pay enough to cover all of the expenses of having a job, which include a phone, transportation, wardrobe, decent housing, and a healthy diet, your job slowly consumes you. The longer you work those jobs, the more your quality of life suffers, and the more you subsidize your employers business with your own life force. Do you really feel morally obligated to sacrifice your life for capitalism, while your boss pockets the profits? This makes no sense. So, you can’t really blame people for not wanting to work, especially when the pay is low and the conditions suck.

So, maybe people don’t really need to work so much. Back in the ’70s I visited Tomorrowland at Disneyworld. Back then they promised a future full of leisure time, thanks to the proliferation of labor saving technology. The animatronic “Father” of the futuristic family of the “year 2000” only worked about 25 hrs a week, to enjoy a futuristic approximation of ’50s era material wealth. What happened to all of this leisure time we were supposed to have?

According to Disney, “Dad” spent that 25hrs in front of a computer screen at home. Today “Dad” probably does spend 25hrs in front of a computer screen at home, but that’s in addition to, not instead of, the 50+ hrs he spends at the office. That Disney experience influenced me a lot. I prepared to enjoy a life of leisure. I cultivate a lot of rewarding hobbies, and value my time quite highly.

On the other hand, most of what passes for work in this culture should really be best left undone. For instance:

Every single huge industrial accident, like the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, the Bhopal chemical plant explosion, or the Fukushima nuclear disaster in Japan, happened at work. A lot of unemployed people fish in the Gulf for direct sustenance, working people ruined that. People do all kinds of crazy shit at work, just because they get paid. Including…

Deep water oil exploration and nuclear power plants. Talk about crazy shit we could all live without.

If we stopped all oil drilling and closed down all of the nuclear power plants, the planet would thank us, and our quality of life would undoubtedly improve. We really wouldn’t miss that energy either. They would have just used it for a lot of other work better left undone. Like:

Defense industry jobs. Do we really need more bombers, guns and missiles? We’ve got hundreds of B52 bombers sitting out on the desert in Arizona, thousands of tanks, trucks and military vehicles of all sorts, packed in cosmoline, filling cavernous warehouses all over this country. We have tens of millions of rounds of ammunition, millions of tons of bombs, and thousands of nuclear warheads. God help us if we even come close to using up all of this stuff.

The Military. “When the only tool you have is a hammer, every problem looks like a nail” We have a hammer. We hammered Vietnam. We hammered Iraq. We hammered Afghanistan. Has it done us any good? Maybe we don’t need such a big hammer. Maybe we’re all such hammerheads, that we don’t need a national hammer at all.If we just gave all of those leftover weapons to the American people, No one would dare fuck with us!

Advertizing. Try to imagine a world where no one tried to sell you anything you didn’t need. This would take out 95% of the entertainment industry as well. No more TV, except community access, no more commercial hits, just your local musicians., actors and artists doing work that means something to them. Marketing, data mining, consumer behavior research even most psychology jobs would disappear. Some people get paid to design advertizing that helps your kid overcome your objections to sugary cereals and fad toys. Those people really should find something else to do with their lives, don’t you think?

Teachers. No one in this culture knows how to live sustainably on this planet. Why waste so much of our children’s time conveying a bankrupt culture to them? They couldn’t possibly screw up as bad as we have, and shouldn’t think of their elders as anything more than a cautionary example of what happens when you spend too much time in school and not enough time living in the world.

Now you might think, “Those are good, high-paying professional jobs.”, but in fact we would inhabit a much better world if these people just spent the day drinking cheap booze in the park. So when you see someone drinking cheap booze in the park, remember, it could be worse. They could be at work.

What People Say:

If you haven't read john hardin's blog before, prepare to be shocked. I always am. (I can't help but enjoy it though...at least when I'm not slapping my hands on my computer desk and yelling at him.) He's sort of a local Jon Stewart only his writing hurts more because it is so close to people and places I love. Kym Kemp
...about, On The Money, The Collapsing Middle Class
... I think he really nails it, the middle class is devolving back into the working class. Pretty brilliant, IMO. Juliet Buck, Vermont Commons http://www.vtcommons.org/blog/middle-class-or-first-world-subsistence
BLOGS WE WATCH: John Hardin’s humorous, inappropriate, and sometimes antisocial SoHum blog is a one-of-a-kind feast or famine breadline banquet telling it like it is—or at least how it is through Mr. Hardin’s uniquely original point of view with some off-the-wall poetic licensing and colorful pics tossed in for good measure. For example, how it all went from this to that and how it all came about like the hokey pokey with your right foot out. You get the idea. Caution: this isn’t for everybody, especially those without a bawdy, bawdry, and tacky sense of humor. You know who you are. We liked it. (From the Humboldt Sentinel http://humboldtsentinel.com/2011/12/16/weekly-roundup-for-december-16-2011/)